acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

I examined male endocrinology and social bonds in relation to dominance status in four groups of wild white-faced capuchin monkeys, Cebus capucinus, in the Santa Rosa Sector of the Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica. I used noninvasive monitoring of male fecal androgen and glucocorticoid levels to examine the hormonal correlates of dominance and rank acquisition. In spite of low rates of aggression among coresident males, alpha males had higher androgen (testosterone and dihydrotestosterone) levels than subordinate males. Among subordinates, adult males had higher androgen levels than subadult males. During a non-aggressive rank increase, the new alpha male’s androgen levels increased immediately after attainment of the alpha position, and continued to increase for several months thereafter, while glucocorticoid increases lagged behind. In contrast, a subordinate adult male in the group had no change in androgen or glucocorticoid levels. Female white-faced capuchins do not display behavioral estrus, and ovulation is not associated with any changes detectable to the human observer. Therefore, I inferred female reproductive status by analyzing fecal progesterone and estradiol. Alpha and subordinate males experienced androgen and glucocorticoid increases in the presence of fertile females, a period likely associated with increased sexual activity and competition among coresident males. Androgens and glucocorticoids were also higher in the dry season, when intergroup encounters were more frequent. High competition between groups may facilitate low rates of intragroup aggression and the formation of social bonds within groups. I found that coresident males formed differentiated social bonds, and formed stronger social bonds when they had fewer coresident males and when group sex ratio was male-biased. Alpha males had the weakest and least equitable bonds, while relationships among subordinate males were characterized by relatively strong and somewhat reciprocal grooming. The importance of male bonds, particularly among subadult males, may reflect the importance of coalitions of immigrant males in the ability to takeover social groups and increase dominance status. A meta-analysis of parallel dispersal – when conspecifics emigrate together or immigrate into groups containing familiar individuals - indicates that in male primates, this behavior may be linked with the propensity of males to form coalitions and the need to retain coalition partners. / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation, "Camille Was No Lady But Katrina Was A Bitch: Gender, Hurricanes & Popular Culture," uses the history of the hurricane naming process to compare the shifting environmental, scientific, and cultural changes taking place throughout the world during the twentieth century. It argues four major points: first, once gender is assigned to an object and adopted publicly en mass, it cannot be removed. Second, hurricane names have segregated hurricanes from other natural disasters in public consciousness. From "witches" and "bitches" to "monsters" and "menaces," the hurricane in popular memory calls forward explicitly gendered imagery; earthquakes, typhoons, dust bowls, plagues of insects, and other natural disasters do not carry the same sort of gendered associations. Third, by tracing the development and acceptance of the U.S. state-implemented hurricane naming process, it is possible to trace the spread of American gendered terms throughout the world. As illustrated throughout, gendered American meteorological terms are also found in global references to storms proving that hurricane names and descriptions are a form of both ecological and soft-power cultural imperialism. Finally, and most importantly, the socio-political implications tied to name and descriptive choices used with hurricanes have had a profound impact on storm perception globally. Introduced in 1954 by the U.S. Weather Bureau as a female-only hurricane naming system, hurricane names were rapidly adopted by other countries under U.S. meteorological control in the post-World War II era. With fears over Cold War politics both abroad and at home, the feminized hurricane was not just a weapon of mass destruction to be harnessed but also a potential tool of cultural domination through descriptive means. By the 1970s, with a discussion of feminism worldwide, references to the female-named storms helped produce dualistic images of "stormy women" and the "Women's Lib Storm" that were politically useful to men and the state when they felt threatened by feminism. Meanwhile, today's references to Hurricane Katrina, and later Sandy, as a "bitch" on Twitter reappear in blogs around the world. Due to this, the feminization of hurricanes has created and sustained a misogynistic, pervasively American form of vilification of women in media portrayals that continues to this day. / acase@tulane.edu

In this dissertation I investigate the Huaura Valley sites of Caldera and El Carmen with the goal of increasing understanding of the Late Intermediate Period occupations in the valley. Though previous style based dating led researchers to assign the sites to the Middle Horizon, this study provides a new perspective on these sites as a result of a suite of AMS dates from excavated contexts that date the occupation to the Late Intermediate Period. The AMS dates from this study necessitate a revised interpretation of these sites and their relationship to other Late Intermediate Period settlements within and beyond the Huaura Valley. In the context of current and ongoing research at the fortified Late Intermediate Period occupations at Acaray and Cerro Colorado in the Huaura Valley as well as recently published evidence of defensive architecture in the area of El Carmen, these investigations help clarify understanding of interregional interaction and the effects of conflict on regional settlement patterns and societies and suggest a reassessment of the Late Intermediate Period in the Huaura Valley is in order. The pottery from Caldera and El Carmen exhibits a unique suite of characteristics that make the study of the material exciting but difficult given the general lack of secure dates on similar pottery from other sites in the valley. In addition to considering the occupants of Caldera and El Carmen in relation to their local peers within the valley and in the Chancay Valley just to the south, this research provides a chance to explore interactions between the Yschma to the south and Casma and Chimú to the north. / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

Examining state-civil society relationships within the context of social movements is vital for understanding the ways in which movements function at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels—both independently and in relation to the state. This thesis takes the case of the women's movement in Peru under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) to provide empirical evidence for the ways in which such relationships are established, function, and evolve over time. I argue that the opening of State institutions, when combined with non-violent state repression, served as political opportunities that allowed the women's movement to expand their repertoire of contention and to contest the clientelistic and corporatist aspects of the interdependent power relationship they had established with Fujimori and the State. Chapter One offers a portrait of the social, economic, and political context in the years leading up to Fujimori's election. Chapter Two constructs a theoretical framework for the case of the women's movement by interweaving theories of clientelism, corporatism, and political opportunities. I outline, in Chapter Three, the data and methods used to analyze the discursive and institutional activities of both the State (Chapter Four) and the women's movement (Chapter Five), while Chapter Six discusses these activities of the State and the women's movement both comparatively and longitudinally. Finally, the conclusion outlines the key contributions of this study to the fields of Latin American Studies, Social Movement Studies, and Political Sociology before offering avenues for potential future research. / acase@tulane.edu

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are frequently associated with communicative impairment, regardless of IQ or mental age. The most significant feature of this impairment tends to be in the dimension of both expressive and receptive prosody, possibly due to reduced neural connectivity between disparate brain areas responsible for language. Despite extensive overlap between the auditory and structural features linking prosody and music as well as extensive shared neural resources, music listening and performance are not impaired. In fact, there is some evidence that these abilities may even be heightened in some ASD individuals. Using behavioral and EEG/ERP methods, the present study sought to investigate this dissociation. A similar electrophysiological response has been observed for both prosody and music, the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), and Music CPS, respectively. This study used language and music stimuli in order to investigate the differences between language and music processing for individuals with ASDs and neuro-typicals. While a CPS was observed for language for the ASD group, it was substantially reduced in its distribution and amplitude. Further, the presence of an offset N1 response to the onset of pauses interfered with the clarity of the CPS response. In music, no music CPS was observed, however, a sustained centrally maximal positivity was observed for both the neuro-typical and ASD groups during the phrase boundary. Additionally, the ASD group showed a similar positivity in response to phrase boundaries in the condition in which the phrase-final note was prolonged. This positivity was similar to the language CPS in duration and amplitude, and suggests similar processing responses to phrase boundaries in language and music. The positivity in response to the second condition suggests that some individuals with ASDs may indeed have heightened processing ability for music. These results support the theories of functional under-connectivity in language and local bias toward sensory features of auditory information at the expense of global prosodic processing. Possible explanations, including the presence of repetition found in music, yet generally absent in language, are considered. / acase@tulane.edu